


Silences

by theLiterator



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-24
Updated: 2010-02-24
Packaged: 2017-10-08 07:38:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/74240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theLiterator/pseuds/theLiterator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Riordan had been in the dungeon for a long time-- days, or even weeks. And he will never tell them why the Wardens must fight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silences

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tasmen](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Tasmen).



> Who I think actually requested Loghain/Riordan dubcon. Heh... yeah.

"You've gone mad, Loghain."

Loghain seized his hair, shoving him against the stone wall of his tiny cell. The other man, Howe, often nearby, always tormenting and never torturing, too weak to seize that satisfaction for himself, laughed.

"Come on, then, your grace. Let us take him to the other room," he said eagerly. His taste for other people's pain was sickening. Riordan spared him a feral smile, delighting in the way he reeled back. Neither of them doubted the Grey Warden's potency. They simply wanted _answers_.

He was tired, and wanted nothing more than to goad them into killing him, but responsibility, duty, his _dreams_, called him forward.

"You will tell me what was in the vault," Loghain growled next to his ear. The next part, Riordan knew, would involve him being manacled to one of the tables and having horrible instruments applied to him until he screamed. It was all he could do not to tell, to keep every terrible secret back from this monster.

Yes, the Orlesians wanted to invade, and had delayed the Warden complement for a reason, and he had confessed that days ago... weeks maybe. But the things Loghain wanted to know were the stuff of nightmares, and he was a man whose nightmares glared more vivid in his memory than the worst of the tortures inflicted on him by Loghain and his men.

"I thought you could break him, Howe," Loghain snarled suddenly, disgust in his voice. Riordan sagged in his grip.

"My torturers are the best in Thedas," he said defensively. "It's hardly _my_ fault that I can't break a Grey Warden."

Riordan found he liked this man less and less with each passing breath.

He laughed. It came out raspy and dry and painful, but he knew the scorn was obvious to the men.

A feminine voice interrupted them, and Riordan strained his neck trying to see... he hadn't heard anyone female in days, prayed it might be salvation.

"Ser, Queen Anora has been looking for you."

Loghain snarled. "Delay her."

"I cannot. She is very insistent. If you do not attend her, it is likely she will send someone to look for you, Ser."

Loghain flung him to the floor, and Riordan hadn't the reflexes necessary to break the fall, not after so long at the mercy of these men. Loghain kicked him for good measure.

"He had better be in a mood to speak when I return, Howe." Loghain did not say 'or else.' Riordan wondered with pain-dizzied distraction whether Loghain ever had to say 'or else.'

The men who had come with Loghain left in a clatter of weapons and armor. Howe waited for the door to slam closed before he crouched next to Riordan. Riordan stared at his boots, polished and new and not at all suited for battle, rather than give the man the honor of his full attention.

"Well now. What am I going to with you?" he asked. Riordan could imagine, given the humiliation he'd just caused him, but chose not to. He stared at the boots, silent.

It was Howe's turn to seize him by the hair. He was hauled up, not quite to his feet, and shoved over one of the tables. He couldn't suppress the shudder of sense memory that went through him at the press of rough wood against his skin.

Howe's men moved forward, fastening each hand in a manacle, too far apart and Riordan was struggling just to breath and the man was behind him and he couldn't see what he was doing. He strained forward over the table, pushing with his toes, trying to ease the pull in his shoulders and the cramping in his chest.

"You may leave," Howe said. The men left.

The dungeon was silent save Riordan's ragged breathing and irregular heartbeat. He hadn't been fed in over a day, and he was bound tightly over a crude, bloodstained wooden table, naked and completely at the mercy of Howe. He was glad he hadn't the breath to laugh, as he knew he was growing hysterical. He had humiliated the man, and now the man was going to take it out of his hide.

"I know I'll never make you talk. Not about the vial of blood, not about the reason Grey Wardens insist only they can end the Blight." Howe paused to rest a gloved hand against the small of Riordan's back. Riordan's stomach churned. "And I don't care. But Loghain... Loghain will take it as a personal insult. And I haven't gotten nearly enough satisfaction out of you to go groveling for that man. I've killed one Teyrn. I'll kill this one. But not yet."

Howe pressed his thumb into the dip between two of Riordan's vertebrae, pain like lightning strikes tore across Riordan's skin, down his legs. He thrashed around to get away, but only made it harder for himself to breathe. When Howe finally relented, Riordan was keening with pain.

The man's hands smoothed across his back, gentle soothing pets. "Shh, shh. We don't want my guards to be alarmed, do we?"

Riordan was fairly certain that the guards would come in only if it were _Howe_ screaming in pain or panic, but he didn't say anything. He had long since tired of saying anything.

Nothing would end this save the Archdemon razing Denerim to the ground. So why bother speaking?

The hands moved lower, lower still, and Riordan knew with sick awareness what the man had planned. It was petty, he thought. Weak, like Rendon Howe.

Knowing and experiencing are different monsters, though, and Riordan spiraled into a dark twist of despair and pain as Howe hurt him, _punished_ him for the sin of causing the man some small measure of humiliation.  
***

As always, comments are love.


End file.
